NimbleX was a Slackware-based live CD which was able to boot from a CD, USB storage device or from another computer on the Local Area Network. Its main features are small size, a varied selection of software packages, and good hardware support.

Philip Papadopoulos has announced the availability of the initial beta build of Rocks Cluster Distribution 7.0, the project's specialist CentOS-based operating system for deployments as computer clusters. This is the distribution's first release based on CentOS 7.x: "It has taken a while, but Rocks 7 is ready for beta testing. Not all rolls are ready for beta testing, but a number of them are. I'm looking for constructive testing, bug hunting and bug fixes. The purpose of the beta is to improve Rocks to support CentOS version 7. This should not be used on production hardware. Getting started: view the YouTube video of Rocks 7 installation, it's very different from Rocks 6; download the kernel ISO image; burn the image to either a DVD (not tested) or a USB stick (tested), it is the same process as copying a CentOS installer image to a USB device; boot the installer and follow the steps shown in the video. What's NOT available? There is no 'scheduler' roll, it's on the to-do list; restore rolls are completely untested (and probably don't work, so don't try); ethernet device names are completely different...." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information. Interested beta testers can download the above-mentioned ISO image from here: kernel-7.0-0.x86_64.disk1.iso (1,070MB, MD5).

Rocks is a complete "cluster on a CD" solution for x86 and x86_64 Red Hat Linux clusters. Building a Rocks cluster does not require any experience in clustering, yet a cluster architect will find a flexible and programmatic way to redesign the entire software stack just below the surface (appropriately hidden from the majority of users). Although Rocks includes the tools expected from any clustering software stack (PBS, Maui, GM support, Ganglia, etc), it is unique in its simplicity of installation.

Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 7.0, a major new update of the project's specialist operating system for easy deployments as computer clusters. Rocks Cluster 7.0 is based on CentOS 7.4: "The latest update of Rocks, code name 'Manzanita', is now released. Manzanita is a 64-bit only release and is based upon CentOS 7.4. The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of December 1, 2017." The brief release announcement doesn't give many details about the release, but the distribution's user guide has been updated to include notes about the "significant differences" compared to Rocks 6: "This section describes how to install your Rocks cluster frontend for Rocks 7. It is significantly different than Rocks 6. The minimum requirement to bring up a frontend is to have the following rolls: Kernel, Base, Core, CentOS, Updates-CentOS. Rocks 7 supports a network-only installation. All rolls must be located on a roll server on a network that is accessible by your frontend." Here are the links to download the essential Rocks 7.0 rolls (MD5, pkglist): kernel-7.0-0.x86_64.disk1.iso (1,171MB), base-7.0-2.x86_64.disk1.iso (349MB), core-7.0-2.x86_64.disk1.iso (122MB), CentOS-7.4.1708-0.x86_64.disk1.iso (7,791MB), Updates-CentOS-7.4.1708-2017-12-01-0.x86_64.disk1.iso (1,562MB).

Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.2, the latest stable version of the project's CentOS-based specialist distribution designed for building real and virtual clusters: "The latest update of Rocks, code name Sidewinder, is now released. Sidewinder is a 64-bit only release and is based upon CentOS 6.6. The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of May 10, 2015. Support for ZFS has been updated to version 0.6.4.1. Condor is now the HTCondor roll release 8.2.8. Also included is support for perfSONAR where cluster builders can decide to install the full GUI (recommended for a standalone perfSONAR host) or just the command tools. Customizing what is installed for perfSONAR gives four attributes that control which elements of perfSONAR are installed on hosts. New to 6.2 is the ability to reconfigure the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of your cluster. There are some caveats to the process. When building a frontend on networks with jumbo frames, the cluster builder can specify the MTU on the 'build' command line." See the release announcement and release notes for further information. Download: area51...6.2.x86_64.disk1.iso (3,334MB, MD5, pkglist).

Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.1.1, a CentOS-based distribution for building real and virtual clusters: "The latest update of Rocks, code name 'Sand Boa', is now released. Sand Boa is a 64-bit only release and is based upon CentOS 6.5. The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of April 14, 2014. This includes updates for the OpenSSL Heartbleed vulnerability. Support for ZFS has been updated to version 0.6.2. Condor is now the HTCondor roll is at release 8.0.6. Also included is a new roll called fingerprint that dynamically determines dependencies of compiled code on both Rocks and non-Rocks systems. Enhancements and bug fixes: rocks add host verifies hostname is not an appliance name; fix reverse path filtering on centos 6.x...." See the release announcement and release notes for more details. Download (MD5) the "jumbo" DVDs containing the OS and all available "rolls": area51...6.1.1.x86_64.disk1.iso (3,270MB).

Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 6.1, a CentOS-based open-source toolkit for real and virtual clusters: "The latest update of Rocks, code name 'Emerald Boa', is now released. Emerald Boa is available for CentOS 6.3 (Rocks 6.1). The Rocks-supplied OS rolls have all updates applied as of November 27, 2012. New features: host-based SSH authentication is now the default, this eliminates the requirement the users have password-less SSH keys and/or mounted home area on remote nodes; two-factor SSH authentication using Google Authenticator Apps for Android and iPhone is supported for all users; New ZFS Linux roll to support the ZFS file system via the ZFS on Linux; new kernel roll to more easily support vanilla Linux kernels." See the release announcement and release notes for further details. Download (MD5) the "jumbo" DVDs containing the OS and all available "rolls": area51...6.1.i386.disk1.iso (2,516MB), area51...6.1.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,580MB).

Philip Papadopoulos has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.4.3, an updated release of the CentOS-based operating system designed for real and virtual clusters: "The production version of Rocks 5.4.3 is now available. New features: the root password supplied during the front-end installation is now used only for the root password of the front-end; to set the root passwords for individual back-end nodes, the user can now use command-line tool. The rationale behind setting random root passwords for all back-end nodes is that, if by some means, an attacker gained access to the root account of a back-end node, and then the adversary could run an offline attack against the encrypted version of the root password, none of the other nodes would be compromised." See the brief release announcement and the detailed release notes for further information. Download (MD5): area51+...+xen-5.4.3.i386.disk1.iso (2,731MB), area51+...+xen-5.4.3.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,937MB).

Greg Bruno has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.4, a CentOS-based Linux operating system for computer clusters: "Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.4 (Maverick) is released for Linux on the i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures. New features: redesign of the Avalanche installer; channel bonding for nodes is now controlled by the Rocks command line; all nodes' firewall rules are controlled by the Rocks command line; introduction of 'Air Traffic Control'; 'greceptor' replaced with 'channeld'; DNS resolution for multiple domains; login appliance support; set the name of a host based on the name of a specific network interface; easily swap two interfaces with one Rocks command; created a GIT repository for Rocks-related source code...." See the release announcement and release notes to learn more about the enhancements in this version of Rocks Cluster Distribution. Download (MD5): area51+...+xen-5.4.i386.disk1.iso (2,480MB), area51+...+xen-5.4.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,552MB).

Greg Bruno has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.2, a specialist, CentOS-based distribution designed to make it simple to build high-performance computer clusters: "Rocks 5.2 is released for Linux on the i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures and Solaris for the x86_64 architecture. New features: with the new JumpStart roll one can now install and configure a Linux-based Rocks front-end to 'JumpStart' Solaris-based back-end machines; can assign 'attributes' to nodes at four levels - global, appliance type, OS (e.g., Linux or SunOS), and host; Anaconda installer updated to version 11.1.2.168; isolated MySQL for the Rocks database under /opt/rocks; fix for software RAID partitioning...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information. Download (MD5): area51.i386.disk1.iso (2,335MB), area51.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,713MB).